


Working Together

by texadian



Series: Sherlolly Appreciation Week [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Day 4, F/M, Misunderstandings, sherlollyweek2015, working together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 10:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3485624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texadian/pseuds/texadian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets the wrong idea when he walks in on Sherlock and Molly, asleep on the couch. </p>
<p>For Sherlolly Appreciation Week, day 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Together

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what John?”

“That you and Molly Hooper are dating?”

 

~Two days before~

“Have you narrowed down the attackers location yet?”

Molly looked up from Sherlock’s microscope, sitting smack dab in the middle of his kitchen table.

“No, not yet. There are at least five different genera of bacterium on the treads of the assumed attacker’s trainers. “But I have narrowed down a few of the species.”

“Excellent. I’m just going to…” Sherlock pointed to his sofa, before flopping down on top of it.

Molly glanced up briefly, before returning her attention to the microscope. She had gone through another ten slides when Sherlock’s mobile began to ring, arousing the napping man on the couch.

“Answer your phone, won’t you?” Molly called over to him as he rubbed at his eye with one hand and blindly searched for the device with the other.

“Yeah?” he spoke groggily into the phone. “Yes. What is it John?”

“No, I’m not sleeping!”

Molly giggled from her perch on the stool and slid forward –feet landing on the wooden floor below with a soft thump.

“Yes, yes. 10:00 am. I got it.” Sherlock hung up the phone, tossing it to the side with a little pout.

“John?” Molly asked, coming to sit down on the other side of the couch.

Sherlock nodded, propping his feet up on the coffee table in front of them. Molly, feeling the craziness of the day wearing away at her as well, rested her chin against her palm, leaning into the armrest of the sofa.

Since John’s new responsibility as a father, Molly had found herself assuming the position as Sherlock’s right hand man –woman- and following him around on cases before and after work. All of the running, both literal and metaphorical, was taking a toll on her sleeping habits. She’d stumble in the door at two o’clock in the morning some days after spending eight hours at work and three, following Sherlock around the city.

Her heads lolled to the side as she read the LED display on the microwave clock: 1:48 am. With a groan, Molly closed her eyes, promising herself that the nap would be short.

 

“Hello? Sherlock!”

There was a rap at the door and a voice yelling from behind it. Molly waved it down, slipping back into sleep, when she felt a hand slide down the calf of her leg.

“Open up, Sherlock. It’s 10:30!”

Her eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the level of light in the room and she looked up towards the door, noticing the lock in place.

“I’m coming,” Molly murmured, reaching out to gather her bearing.

The voice didn’t hear though as it continued to knock at the door. “I know you’re in there!”

Giving up with returning to sleep, Molly rose from the couch into a sitting position, using her right arm to hold her weight up. She blinked once towards the door before lowering her gaze to the warm presence on her leg.

It was Sherlock, or rather his face, nuzzled against her side, still fast asleep. She poked his shoulder once and watched as he flinched at her touch, but made no move to awaken.

His dressing gown, strewn out over the couch, covered the ends of Molly’s legs, but her arms, bare from the shoulders down, shivered with the loss of her jumper.

Where was her jumper anyway? Molly patted around her, looking for the colourful garment, when she noticed a sleeve poking out from behind her head where she had used it as a pillow.

“Why did you hog both of them if you weren’t even going to use them?” Molly muttered to herself, noticing the two decorative pillows at Sherlock’s feet.

It was then, as she leaned forward to reach for one, that John unlocked the door, fed up with being ignored, and barged into the room.

“Molly?”

John’s eyes landed on the partially undressed pathologist, before noticing the consulting detective himself, cuddling into Molly’s side.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he apologized, backing out of the room.

“John!” Molly tried to call him back, but he was already on his way downstairs.

She tried chasing after him, but Sherlock’s upper body had her left leg bolted to the couch and there was no way she was getting loose right now.

“Great,” Molly groaned.

After a few minutes of self-pity, Molly turned back to Sherlock, having not moved an inch in ten minutes.

“Would you just get up already? You’re late apparently.”

After another moment of silence, Sherlock’s head rose and he eyed Molly, following her bodyline up to her miffed face.

“How late?” His brows scrunched.

“About 40 minutes late.”

Sherlock shrugged it off. “I’ll be fine,” he said, nuzzling back against her side. “Wake me in 25.”

 

 

The rest of the day went pleasantly well for Molly. After 25 minutes, Sherlock detached himself from her leg and got dressed and out the door in less than 5 minutes. He uttered a brief goodbye to her before the two went separate ways outside of 221b. It was the weekend and Molly had been blessed by the scheduling gods to land neither a Saturday nor Sunday shift all month.

She was halfway through a re-watch of the last half season of Doctor Who the following morning when her mobile rang from the bedroom. She tapped the spacebar on her computer to pause the show and pushed herself up from the couch. The bothersome default ring continued to blare until she reached the device and pulled it away from the charger.

_Mary Watson: Missed Call._

Molly unlocked the phone and went to call back when a new notification popped up under her voicemail icon. Tapping away at the screen as she walked back into the front room, Molly played the voicemail to herself, flopping down when she’d reached the couch.

“Hey Molly,” Mary’s voice sang out from the phone’s speaker. “You didn’t tell me about all these _crimes_ you’ve been solving with Sherlock over there at Baker Street.” There was a pause before Mary broke out into laughter; making inaudible comments to what Molly assumed was John in the background.

“Odd.” Molly set her phone down on the side table and went to prepare a salad for lunch.

She was back on the couch, eating the croutons out of the mix first, when her phone buzzed again. It was just a text this time from Lestrade.

“A case on a Sunday?” Molly thought to herself, cringing inwardly at the thought of being down at the morgue that day.

_‘I can’t believe you’ve kept us in the dark for two weeks! (Don’t worry, I haven’t told Anderson yet)’_

Molly looked down confused. _In the dark_?None of the cases she’d worked with Sherlock had any ties to NSY investigations.

_‘On what?’_ she texted back.

After a couple of minutes of searching through her salad for the remaining croutons, her phone buzzed again by her lap.

_‘Your relationship with Sherlock.’_

“What?” Molly voiced, aloud. She set down her half eaten salad on the coffee table in front of her and stood up. Pacing back and forth, Molly stumbled over what she could possibly text back. What was Lestrade talking about? Paranoid, Molly tried to relax. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions and reading into the message too much. _Relationship_ could just mean the friendship. But that wasn’t a surprise to Lestrade; she’d been spending more time with Sherlock ever since his return.

Finally, another text came in from the detective, stopping her in her tracks.

_‘I can’t believe we all fell for that ‘solving crimes’ excuse. You really had us going for a while there.’_

No, she’d been right. The man had implied that type of _relationship._ Distraught, and afraid this was all some elaborate joke, Molly powered down her phone and returned to the kitchen to grab a new bag of crisps and a can of juice from the fridge.

 

~Present~

“Molly and I aren’t dating.” Sherlock uttered the final word like he’d tasted something bitter on his tongue.

“You aren’t?” John shifted his posture, trying to size up his friend in front of him. “Really?”

Sherlock nodded, confused. “Why would you assume that?”

John looked like he was about to make a rebuttal, when he paused –the error in his assumption dawning on him.

“I- I saw you guys sleeping on the couch and I assumed…” John’s voice faded away.

“You assumed wrong John.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He ran his hand along the back of his head. “I might have told Mary as well. Again, so sorry.”

Sherlock hummed.

“What?”

“I have to go, John.”

“What, where? I just got here.”

“I assumed you’ll let yourself out when you’re ready to leave,” Sherlock said, grabbing his Belstaff and keys.

John gaped back at him, nodding along until his friend had descended down the stairs.

 

“Turn your phone on please,” Sherlock said outside of Molly’s flat.

He saw the light flicker on from the beneath the door and a set of footsteps drew near.

“No thanks,” a voice finally called out from the other side. “I don’t feel like talking to anyone.”

“I must warn you then, that we are presently conversing.”

Molly opened the door to find him leaning against the frame.

“Sherlock,” she bit out.

“Hi,” he replied, skeptically. “Can I come in?”

She stepped away from the door and retreated back into her living room. He took that as a yes.

“I assume word has gotten out about a certain misunderstanding.” Sherlock chanced a glance her way, but she was still giving him the cold shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, I have set it right and expect rumours to die down in the next couple of days.”

She rubbed at her eye and sniffed.  “It can’t be that bad of a assumption, can it?”

She turned to him. “I’m fine, actually.”

He knew she wasn’t.

“Who told you?”

Molly looked up at him, considering his sincerity.

“Lestrade, but I’ve received two nonsensical voice mails from Mary and pestering from coworkers at work today.

“Sorry about that,” Sherlock apologized.

Molly brushed it off and busied herself, clearing dishes off of her table

“It’s not that,” Molly voiced.

“Oh, good.” Sherlock sounded… relieved? “I mean, go on.”

She hesitated, holding her plate from dinner –the knife sliding down the center when she shifted her weight to her right side.

“They don’t see me as you do.” Molly turned away from him, hiding her blush, and placed her dirty dish in the sink.

“How do I see you?” Sherlock followed her into the kitchen; his eyes searching her face for answers.

“You see me; they see a helpless pathologist, restrained to the lab.” Molly dug her hands into her pockets and rocked back on the heels of her feet.

Sherlock tilted his head in confusion.

“Lestrade thought that ‘solving crimes’ was an excuse for you know… being with you.”

Sherlock’s pupils widened.

“He thought that being with you was more plausible than me actually helping you with cases.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

Molly jumped back at his brash statement.

Sherlock lowered his voice. “What I mean to say Molly, is that I asked you to solve crimes with me because you are smart and observant and clever… You’re actually quite brilliant.”

Molly smiled, running the lint from her pocket between two fingers.

“You aren’t just saying…”

“Believe me. I wouldn’t come up with some elaborate scheme just to spend time with you,” Sherlock joked.

Molly looked away crestfallen.

“Look.” He stepped closer to her and took her hands in his, running the pads of his thumbs over the back of her hands. “I’d just come up to you, take your hands in mine and say it.”

Molly avoided his eyes, her body becoming quite flushed. “Say what?” she ventured when he had let go of one of her hands and rose his own to her face.

“Molly, would you like to have dinner with me –after our current case is closed, of course?”

“Yes. I think that could be arranged.”

“Excellent.”

A beat passed between them.

“I think we should keep this a secret for a bit,” she stated, leaning into his touch.

Sherlock cocked his head in confusion.

“See how long it takes for them to figure it out this time.”

Sherlock drew her face up to meet his and kissed her, grinning against her lips.

“Sounds fun. I give John, oh, at the very least a week, to figure it out.”

“I’d say two,” Molly added.

She pulled on his collar bringing him back, when a thought struck her.

“No tempting fate to win though, Sherlock.” She leaned back and sent him a piercing stare. “God knows what John would do if he walked in on anything more.”

Sherlock nodded along. “He’d probably be halfway to Bristol by the time we even left the flat.”


End file.
